Wednesday, 20 August 2014

Scottish actor PETER CAPALDI is best-known for playing foul-mouthed politician Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It and its spin-off movie In the Loop, but he'll soon become a family favourite when he takes up residence in the TARDIS as the twelfth actor to portray The Doctor in the BBC's Doctor Who. But what else is there to know about this Scot with the penetrating stare...?

Peter Capaldi was born in Glasgow on 14 April 1958; the son of an Irish mother and Italian father, which makes him the first 21st-century Doctor to be older than the show itself.

An early acting role was in Bill Forsyth's classic comedy-drama Local Hero from 1983, and Capaldi has gone on to appear in more than 40 films and television shows.

He's an Oscar-winner! In 1995, Capaldi's live action short film Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life was joint-winner of an Academy Award.

While an art student, Capaldi was lead singer in a punk rock band called Dreamboys, of which Craig Ferguson (future U.S talk show host) was the drummer. Both men share a lifelong passion for Doctor Who.

Very spookily, Capaldi appeared in World War Z as a scientist working for the World Health Organisation, where he was credited as "W.H.O Doctor".

As he's already appeared in Doctor Who's "The Fires of Pompeii", alongside David Tennant, this makes Capaldi only the second guest-star actor to have subsequently landed the lead role, after Colin Baker.

Capaldi was rejected from RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts).

Cementing his lifelong Whovian credentials, the young Capaldi sent many letters to Doctor Who magazine in the 1960s and 1970s, and directly credits the show for inspiring him to become an actor.

Peter Capaldi makes his debut in Doctor Who this Saturday, 23 August @7.50PM on BBC1.

(Correction: in an earlier version of this article, mathematically-challenged gremlins stated Doctor Who began in 1966 and that Peter Capaldi is the first Doctor to have been born before the show began. This is, of course, balderdash. Said gremlins have since been slaughtered and the article re-worded.)